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Groovy JSR: A New Era for Java?

Posted by timothy on from the coffee's-always-been-there dept.

fastdecade writes "Groovy, the open-source scripting language, has been submitted for a Java Specification Request (JSR). And not without strong support from venerable J2EE practitioner/author, Richard Monson-Haefel, who labels this "the beginning of a new era in the Java platform". Groovy can use Java objects easily and compiles to JVM byte code, but it is nonetheless a scripting language at heart and a great companion for the more heavyweight Java programming language. Most JSRs concern new APIs, and this is the first JSR for an alternative language. Imagine a common platform of standardised languages talking to each other ... this looms as a big threat to .Net and a rejuvenation of the Java platform."

2 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. *blink* hey this is COOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As a hardcore Ruby lover, I've been unhappy that I can't use Ruby with the vast libraries available for Perl and other established libraries.

    But this groovy thing looks like a really nice smalltalk-esque language that hooks right into Java, enough to satisfy both sides of my brain.

    This is cool and I can benefit from this *right now* in my work. Forget Parrot or Perl 666 (heh).

    How come I never heard of this? And why doesn't jpackage have it?

  2. Re:Let Me Get This Straight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is like Python,

    Except it's actually elegant, based on Smalltalk, not whatever the heck Python is inspired by.

    And Python reference counting stinks, I just spent weeks debugging a C extension that keeps killing a Python-based server.

    I use Python, but I sure don't think there's anything "great" about it, at least not enough to explain why it seems *every* language discussion includes somebody who thinks Python is god's gift to computer science.

    Python came along at a time when people where starting to use Perl for bigger projects and realizing that Perl is really BAD for big projects. Momentum took over from there.